Einstein is generally credited with eliminating the need for the aether. However, as documented in the book
"Einstein and the Ether" from 1916 until his death he believed in the aether in some form. In these years, he
used the terms "relativistic ether" and "physical space" to convey this idea.
For example, in 1934 he wrote "physical space and the ether are different terms for the same thing; fields are
physical states of space."
The recent detection of gravitational waves (GW's) has elevated this discussion because one model says that
GWs are waves of gravitons propagating at the speed of light through the empty void of space, the competing
model advanced by D.B Blair et al is that GWs are ( ripples in the curvature of spacetime which propagate
in a very stiff elastic medium.
The word "aether" is not used by Blair, but perhaps the elastic properties of spacetime, the multiple fields of
the standard model, and the vacuum fluctuations of quantum field theory should be lumped together into the
collective term "relativistic aether". Is space and empty void which messenger particles propagate through of
does space have physical properties which justify the term "relativistic aether" and call for further analysis.